From Martin Allen’s blog, Education, Economy and Society
The Young people and work: interim report by Alan Milburn, published in May 2026, investigated why over one million young people in the UK are NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). Despite the fanfare around Milburn, the Labour frontbench has said little new or shown any real urgency. The Department of work and pensions (DWP) put a junior minister on TV in July to officially announce the government plan to offer 300,000 work placements – these can be relatively short, even just a week.
This decision, part of Labour’s Youth Guarantee predates Milburn, as does the promise of a 6-month paid employment opportunity for young people that have been out of work and claiming Universal Credit for 18 months – but with only around 50 000 of 1 million NEETs eligible.
It was therefore encouraging that incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham included the plight of jobless young people in his first major speech. Echoing Milburn, Burnham said a “complete rethink” was required with a variety of measures from increased mental health support at work, to giving local mayors more devolved powers over employment.
Work experience in retail announced
At the beginning of September Burnham announced 10 000 work experience placements at Sainsburys which will start in October this year. They are for 14 to 24 year olds and will be focussed on deprived areas and NEETS. At the same time up to 100,000 work placements were announced by Asda, Greggs, Tesco and Ann Summers – backed by the British Retail Consortium. The Sainsbury placements cover retail, logistics and tech but are unpaid with travel and lunch costs provided. The Retail Consortium scheme are also unpaid with placements lasting up to 4 weeks with a guaranteed job interview at the end. Universal Credit payments will continue during the placements.
These work experience placements do not guarantee apprentice training or a permanent job. We will need the data on the conversion rate – how many of these placements lead to proper jobs. The thinking behind it may be well intentioned– that young people from these areas lack the family connections to get a first contact for a job and this will do that. However there is also an element of seeing the main problem being the attitude of the young people rather than the lack of meaningful jobs. In days when unions were strong and before the de-industrialisation of these areas family connections did work quite well if young people wanted to follow their families into skilled work.
Another problem with the scheme is that it is hard to see the sort of jobs in the retail sector providing much more than relatively unskilled work experience. Students doing work experience during secondary school are rarely enthusiastic for placements in retail.
Technical education?
Improving the dire situation facing NEETs would cost billions and unless he stands up to the pressure from finance and big business this expenditure can’t be guaranteed. It was perhaps for this reason, Burnham’s comments centred on a promise to expand technical education – giving every young person a “clear path” and on “rebalancing the focus on the university route”. Burnham’s interest in technical education has been long standing. As mayor he used devolved powers to instigate the ‘Manchester Baccalaureate’ – a wrap around certificate made up of technical, vocational, but including ‘core’ subjects, as an alternative to the academic Ebacc.
Burnham’s confidence in the Manchester Baccalaureate can be admired, but let’s get things in proportion. The Bacc is a ‘wrap round’ certificate – a reorganisation of what’s available to 14-year-olds, not a new style pedagogy. Secondly, it’s only been in operation for about 2 years. While it may have been adopted across the city, it’s far too early to conclude whether it’s had any major effect on employment. The recent success of the Manchester economy, carefully nurtured by Burnham, is the result of a wider range of factors, international as well as local, some good, some not so.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we should stop campaigning for a good general education for all. Rather than parity between the academic and the vocational tracks, neither should continue to exist.
Re-industrialisation?
Improved technical education might well play a role in what Burnham describes as the ‘re-industrialisation’ of Britain, but it won’t in itself create new jobs. It is also very unclear what, beyond opening an alternative ‘number 10’ in Manchester, Burnham means by re-industrialisation, let alone how it would square with an alternative Green New Deal that would have the potential to develop very different opportunities for employing young people.
However what is most concerning is the way that political leaders and policy wonks, desperate to keep youth unemployment out of the headlines, but also to control the welfare bill, restrict the crisis of young people and employment to those at the bottom end of the labour market. Only around half of NEETs claim any benefits and it only makes up 15% of the overall UC spend.
Nevertheless DWP minister Pat McFadden has said he is been inspired by the Dutch government’s approach: requiring young welfare recipients to join community projects such as litter-picking. Nothing official from Burnham yet but there has been talk about restricting sickness or other benefits if young people do not take up training or work placement offers which is something the Tories and Reform has backed.
Employment crisis not just for NEETs
Young people have been losing out to other groups for years. The old ‘youth jobs’ no longer exist and with few apprenticeships or other real alternatives to low paid service sector employment, they’ve delayed their transition to the labour market and flocked to university instead – now, Labour seems to be abandoning the Blairite aim of 50 per cent of school leavers going to higher education. But ‘entry- level’ employment, the 21st century equivalent relied on by the current generation of graduates is being seriously cut back as, employers grapple with the implications of AI – the employment crisis facing young people stretches well beyond the NEETs
It is mistaken to blame the expansion of the university sector for crowding out the development of (ill-defined) ‘intermediate’ skills. It’s true that the market driven and increasingly privatised university sector, desperate to fill courses and put ‘bums on seats’ spends millions on recruitment and will turn few applicants away. But it’s also the case that in the absence of real alternatives young people have turned to higher education in their thousands, understanding that ‘getting qualified’, if it doesn’t land them a ‘graduate job’ should at least improve their position in the labour queue.
At the moment it still does, relative to others, yet without major economic and labour market reforms, will it continue to be enough?